It was, you may remember, the news that transfixed the country. In one glorious week in May, in between “Oh my God, the recession” and “Oh my God, swine flu”, the Met Office spake unto us.

“Attend to us, people of Britain,” it said. “For we bear glad tidings. This year looks odds-on for a Barbecue Summer!”

The result on national morale was instantaneous. Sales of garden furniture rocketed. An extra five million British holidays were booked. People embraced in the streets, weeping, with some already taking off their vests and throwing them into the nearest bin, shouting: “I have no further need of YOUR thermal qualities in 2009.”

We were all so happy, it never occurred to us that the phrase “Barbecue Summer” had just been sprung on us as if it were one we had been using for years.

But it hadn’t, of course. The Met Office was using the distraction of fine weather to hijack and reprogramme the British climatic lexicon with this “Barbecue Summer” arriviste. Determined not to let this impertinence pass without comment, I rang the Met Office and talked to a nice man called Dave.

“Dave, did you just make up the phrase Barbecue Summer?” I asked, in my best Woodward and Bernstein manner.

“Yes. Yes we did. Last Thursday,” Dave confirmed, cheerfully. There was nothing I could do in the face of such straightforward honesty.

I simply sat back and started using the phrase “Barbecue Summer” myself. Like it was normal. Because those were days of hope.

Well, there it was and here we are, two, long months later. And what we will all immediately notice is that, really, there was no need for the Met Office to have reinvented the English language at all. It has not been a Barbecue Summer. I am so incensed by this I ring the Met Office again.

“Has it, Dave?” I say. “It has NOT BEEN a Barbecue Summer. Dave? What happened to the Barbecue Summer?”

“Let’s not write it off yet,” Dave says, just as cheerfully as before. “Yes, the weather has been quite disappointing for July, but let’s not forget that glorious second half of June — Wimbledon. People were moaning that we wouldn’t get to use the new roof.”

Do you mean that what we actually had was a “Barbecue Fortnight”?

“Well, seasonal forecasting is still in its infancy,” Dave says. “In May, if Barbecue Summer were a horse, you would have put a bet on it.”

But that horse has fallen over, hasn’t it, Dave? We’re standing over the horse with a shotgun.

“Well, it’s stumbling but let’s not give up on it yet.”

Dave, did you buy a barbecue?

“I already had one.”

I did, Dave. I bought a barbecue after I spoke to you. It was expensive. Shiny. Red. From B&Q. It’s in the garden, full of rainwater. Birds wash their wings in it. It literally has not seen a sausage.

“There’s still August to go.”

Yeah, August. How’s August looking, Met Office-wise, Dave? Tell me the truth. We’ve known each other long enough.

“Well, let’s put it this way. I’ve put my barbecue in the shed,” Dave says.

“I don’t want it to get any rustier.”